9 miles - progressive run

I got up early and headed to the park planning on running 12 miles total with 10 of them at goal marathon pace. After running a little over a mile, I stopped and talked to Sean about a couple of things. He said that it was a better idea to go up to Conroe and do a long run in the hilly terrain than running the Park to Park race, especially with my hamstring being a little sensitive right now. I'm a little bummed about not running the race, but it's probably the smartest thing. I don't want to hurt myself and end up missing training for a relatively unimportant race and with the mileage and intensity of my workouts this week, I probably wasn't setting myself up to run my fastest this weekend. Since I did a long run Monday and I was a little concerned about having a really high weekly mileage since I'd be doing two long runs 5 days about, Sean suggested I cut a couple miles out of the run and just do a progressive run. I'm not sure I would have been able to do 10 miles at marathon pace around the park this morning. The weather was pretty miserable for running. The temperature was in the low 70's and it was misting/sprinkling the whole time so the humidity was at 100%. I did 8 miles picking up the pace each mile and then a one mile cooldown. My splits were 7:45, 7:25, 7:00, 6:50, 6:33, 6:22, 6:10, 5:57. It took me about 3-1/2 miles to really get warmed up and feel like I was running quick and smooth. I felt pretty good the last 4-1/2 miles.

Instead of doing the Park to Park race this weekend, I'll be heading up to Conroe for the Kenyan Way's Boston training long run. Sean said there are more hills on this course than in the Boston marathon so it should be a good change from at the flat runs everywhere in Houston.